Fuck it - I was in the middle of a Sopranos rewatch anyway and it's only 3 hours long, so why the hell not? Purports to be set in the middle of Season 5, though there isn't much to suggest that beyond a surprisingly well-rendered and well-acted Satriale gang showing up every once in a while to do a catchphrase for your amusement. A testament to the professional calibre of guys like Gandolifini and Imperioli that they actually read some of this "PRESS THE SQUARE BUTTON TO GRAB" shit at the same level as the gold David Chase and Matthew Weiner were weaving for them on the TV programme.

Unfortunately, there's no direct references to the ongoing storylines that were on television at the time, but that's maybe for the best given that Season 5 was mostly dealing with PlayStation 2-unfriendly topics like the impossibility of dissolving a marriage, the effects and ennui of Alzheimer's disease and the fundamentally immutable nature of human beings. It's very amusing to imagine Tony coming back to the Bing after one of this season's countless heart-wrenching conversations with his Uncle Jun or Carmela to dispense a [COLLECT 5 PASTRAMI SANDWICHES] fetchquest for our player-character.

Feels downright surreal at times to be playing a punch-punch-kick beat 'em up based on one of television's most legitimately prestigious works of art, and is worth playing for that reason alone; honestly, this isn't that far off, I dunno, "THE WIRE KART" or "MAD MEN: A TELLTALE SERIES". For my sins, I'm also playing Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds at the moment and even a campy little show like that feels tightly constricted by the chains of videogamedom. If nothing else, it was nice to walk around the Bing and other locations from the show and see all the sets connected together into a cohesive collection of liminal spaces I know. Just wish there was an Alabama 3 driving mission.